So I've been half-assedly reading some Regeneration One here and there whenever I can, and have read the first ten issues of Marvel G1 [which I found entertaining and better than the cartoon].

Being in a moody vintage/retro mania [maybe helped by the plethora of upcoming retro masterpieces] I think I'm ready to fully indulge myself in the original marvel G1 series...the main question is, how? In which order?

I have an ancient DVD my sister burned years ago with pretty much all the UK material, got G2, and can hunt for USA G1 as well.

How should I start? Pick up from where I left off at issue 11 of US series, or start over in the UK series? Would I be missing much if I only went with one series?

Regeneration One wholly ignores everything in the UK series, but I heartily reccommend you give the UK series a read. It's a bit confusing but mostly straightforward and can be inserted neatly inbetween the Marvel US stories (though, again, it cashes with Regen One)

Recommend you to check out Cliffy's guide to the Marvel series in this site, certainly helped me out a lot when I read through the Marvel comics myself.

Regeneration One also throws G2 under the bus and IMO G2 is Furman's best work in the US. It screams for a true ending.

My advice is read IDW's The Transformers: Classic and The Transformers: Classic UK TPBs. I only have the first three TPBs of the UK series, (because I own all of the US and UK Titan TPBs and most of the Titan US HCs as well).

The Transformers: Classics UK vol. 4 is supposed to be coming out soon, vols. 5-8 are supposed to be coming out in the future.

Out of curiosity, as a Reg reader who isn't familiar with the Marvel stuff, and thus someone the series has bent over backwards to try and make itself accessible too, what do you make of it thus far?

As for the Marvel stuff, I'd also recommend reading all UK and US stuff in order, though keeping track of when to switch from trade to trade can be a bit of a pain in the ass (I'd personally recommend reading the Annual stories after each Christmas issue even though they were released earlier as that's when they were intended to be given to kids).

Alternately, as a try before you buy thing, Target: 2006 has been reprinted multiple times by this point and should be as cheap as chips to get hold of, that's a good one to tip your toe into the water with.

In terms of help, our own guide by Mr. Jumper may, as he claims, be creaking at the seams a bit but still covers most of the basics and is a handy at a glance guide to what goes where.

A newish site that's still onging in its efforts to cover the series by our own Ryan F is well worth a read as well, it's in a similar style to Cliffy's but with the advantage of all the extra information that's come out in the last few years and rather pleasingly has taken the insane decision to try and fit everything together into one timeline as much as possible:

Then 10 issues of Marvel US, yesterday I went through 11 and 12. Will probably stick to it, got around 68 issues and then dive in the UK issues.

As for the order, I think the files I was given are in reading order, numbered.

For your question, reading the first year of Marvel US, I kind of enjoy it. I never did like the G1 cartoon in my adult years and it gets worse the older I get, but these comics do provide a very alternate series of events. Sure there are hickups here and there, but the story doesn't reset every week. The one thing I don't enjoy is comic Prime so far.

For a long, long time the US material was incredibly tightly interwound with the UK stuff and that it was American material was basically secret - the first half of Bob's run especially is as much gospel to Roberts as anything Furman's done (not to mention the complete re-evaluation both Bob and his work on Transformers has received over the past decade).

With the cast, the comic's generally a bit better at keeping track and you can assume pretty much everyone not seen has been deactivated on or off panel (keep an eye on any scenes in Ratchet's workshop); some of the continuity is pretty tight. The other oddity with the comic is that a lot of the Series 1 guys really aren't in it much - Sunstreaker gets knocked out at some point in the first four-parter, has his body ripped up by Shockwave and then isn't in it for something like thirty issues (and then only really as a joke).

(Can sort out UK scans on a DVD-R for you if you want BTW, mate - still owe you a solid for those Ideon discs)

No worries about the UK scans brother; sister still has a DVD full of the entire comic run of transformers from G1 to dreamwave-only missing the USA run which I managed to acquire

Continuity is tight, yes, the only odd thing is how Prime/Ratchet lament about not having enough spare parts to fix anybody, yet a few issues later, the S2 bots, Omega Supreme and the Aerialbots are *built on earth*!

And yep, Bob really is the ONLY Blaster writer. Furman for some reason always seems to write him as a slightly less street version of the cartoon character (or, more fairly, more in line with the TFU profile/tech spec). Bob Wolverines Blaster a little bit (he's a dick in the one with the Scraplets) but generally he's good fun.

Re: scans, would recommend, it's interesting to read the comics as issues rather than story fragments. (Although you've got to remember the Marvel UK stuff does occasionally re-run things and that there were all of the balls-ups with the Collected Comics.)

I have been reliably informed that it's highly unlikely that a professional publisher would consider taking a financial risk on my work if it was being made available online for free. Even if I went down the e-book route, amazon's KDP Select scheme also stipulates that the material not be available online.

Goldbug's origin is in the (abysmal) GI Joe crossover; there's a much better alternate one in the UK comic. Target 2006 was, IIRC, fairly close to the debut of Omega Supreme (hence the awkward dialogue mentioning him when the story had clearly been planned before he turned up).

The thing that gets on my nerves is that I like what I'm reading, immensely, which will in turn prompt me to read the UK run as well. Which in turn will result in me reading the same US stories, with different dialogue occasionaly?

Anyway, ace stuff so far. Love how it focuses on typical 80ies Marvel villains at points, but gives full props to various Autobots and Decepticons as well.

The thing that gets on my nerves is that I like what I'm reading, immensely, which will in turn prompt me to read the UK run as well. Which in turn will result in me reading the same US stories, with different dialogue occasionaly?

Depends on how well your memory works... I'd at least consult a guide so you can work out what fits where. Some UK stories follow plot threads started off in the US stories (example - there's a UK story featuring Blaster [albeit miles out of character] and the Throttlebots set right in the middle of the post-Scraplet storyline) whereas others are almost completely independent (post-Target 2006, Furman began using the post-Movie cast for a lot of storylines as he didn't have to worry about the US book as much).

The dialogue changes are largely minimal and intuitive - tidying up a few minor continuity points (not hugely spoilery example - the Predacons appear in a UK story that was printed before their US debut, so some dialogue was tweaked so the US reprint mentioned this). Occasionally some background characters are changed (IIRC Broadside turns up randomly on the Ark in a couple of US frames, whereas in the UK he was meant to be on Cybertron with the Wreckers) but it's minor and not exactly thorough - sometimes characters just turn up in the background where they're not meant to be.

Generally they get more independent as the (UK) comic goes on. By the time Furman's writing the US book the continuity's a complete head**** as eighties logistics meant early attempts to tie it all together fell flat and he wandered off into a dead-end instead.

Blaster's character in the US book is odd really considering it's from the same bloke who wrote his profile... I wonder if Bob just changed his mind between writing that and bringing the character in or if that was one of the few profiles that was more down to Hasbro than him and he never liked the music loving guy and was cheerfully happy to ignore it?

It is surprisingly how bland (it's slightly more like the profile in that Blaster's speech is a bit more slang-ey but it's hardly Buster Jones voicing him) UK Blaster is considering he shows up long enough after he's played a major role in a few US issues for Furman to have gotten a better handle on the character.

Assuming it's just not bad advice I wonder if it's just down to the fact Who books are likely guaranteed sellers in a way a much more niche project like a Transformers comics guide wouldn't be makes it be seen as more worthy of a punt?

Lulu is always an option - print a few vanity/gift editions and with something like a guide which has less copyright issues (it's where I did that Robo Machines trade thing I tend to give people, but a text TF guide - maybe avoid using "Transformers" on the cover and commission a cover from someone?) you can leave it publicly listed and see if anyone wants it, maybe make a couple of quid but not really lose anything beyond time if they don't.

Regarding Blaster, Bob probably didn't think the profiles/tech specs should be overly restrictive - he needed a resistance badass and had only a handful of characters available, so promoted the guy who had the greatest scope of abilities. Worth remembering there were probably around thirty-forty official Autobots at the time and most of them were accounted for on Earth; the use of Blaster, Percy and the '85 Minibots was probably mandated and they're a pretty flaky bunch.

Assuming it's just not bad advice I wonder if it's just down to the fact Who books are likely guaranteed sellers in a way a much more niche project like a Transformers comics guide wouldn't be makes it be seen as more worthy of a punt?

Think it's because he's angling for a specific promotion, with exclusivity conditions;

As far as I can see, small press books that are successful (which means selling a few hundred to low thousands of copies, but not having to pay many middle-men a cut) rely heavily on word of mouth, and that means having a ready-made audience following an already-successful blog or printed column. That goes double for retro-oriented "essay" books with a natural audience of a holiday week next to the Waterstones till for those that are incredibly lucky or a publisher chooses to buy into that spot, before they get remaindered and show up on Amazon Marketplace for the cost of postage.

Poetry, essays, tech manuals, short story collections, etc. are worth even less than novels, basically -- and the latter field is incredibly saturated for non-franchise genre fiction too; the breakaway category for ebooks is erotica, which people prefer to get from Amazon and remain less identifiable in doing so.

Freelance writing to spec is a bit more sustainable, but often pretty soul-destroying.

Blaster's still my favourite comic bot. *Now* I get why he's so popular. He's like the Chromedome/Whirl of that generation, in comparison with the others.

The UK story with the "Iron Man" made me want to throw up in my mouth. It couldn't have been used in a more out of place spot in the series, either.

Grimlock's kind of an asshole. On the episode where he's elected leader by the Autobots, not by force, he's actually pretty badass. Then he turns all retarded and Megatron-like. It's like reading Ongoing 1 after AHM15 about Prowl all over again.

The comics didn't run concurently with the TV show, did they? Because it's still early in the run [36 of 80], the S1 cast was discarded within the first 12 issues, S2 cast showed up briefly with Blaster taking over the main character duties, and now I'm seeing Predacons/Ratbat/Runamuck/Skylynx/Throtlebots show up, which, unless I'm mistaken, are toys that appeared AFTER the movie.